Month of October 2024

by Nick

Posted on November 24, 2024

Week of the 1st - Travelled to Texas for Grandmamma's Funeral

Tiff's grandmother on her dad’s side passed away so we drove to Texas for the funeral. We ended up taking the trailer so that we didnt have to move in and out of peoples houses as we were travelling. We were going to stay the night in Post on the way to Tiff's Mom's but when we got there the smell of H2S from the oil and gas operations in the area was overpowering and we decided to keep driving. We ended up staying the night in a truck stop in Snyder TX. It was our first time doing this and we didnt have any problems. The noise from the trucks pulling in and out and idling all night wasnt ideal but we were able to get the rest that we needed.

We left early the next morning making a quick stop for donuts in Snyder. We then stopped by Tiffs aunt and uncle's that live in Lawn, TX.They are big rodeo people and spend most of their weekends travelling for events. We spent a few hours there where they made lunch for us and Tiff rode horses. We also rode around their property on their UTV. From there we made it to Brenham to Mrs. Sheila’s house around 9 PM or so. We set the trailer up in her driveway and visited with her sister Barbara and her boyfriend Cody.

Tiff’s mom and Molly were there also. A bit of a diversion, our dog Molly has been staying with Mrs. Sheila due to anxiety being around Mitch and her eating his table scraps causing her to have gastroenteritis leading to several thousand dollars in vet bills. The funeral was on Tuesday the 8th. A funny thing happened on the way to the funeral, we ended up running in to Tiff’s cousin and Aunt’s husband (Uncle? One of those situations where they married after Tiff was an adult so uncle doesn't quite seem right). So what was interesting is the uncle and cousin arent from the same aunt but two different aunts who happened to be at Whataburger in Brenham independently at the same time we showed up. Anyway strange coincidence at the least.

We went to the funeral in Columbus that started at 1 pm at the cemetary. After the funeral we went to her grandmothers house. Since everyone was in town her uncles wanted to start going through her things and seeing what people wanted. We stayed there for a few hours before going to dinner as a group at Nancy's is Columbus. We ended up staying the night at an RV park in Columbus. After all that had happened tht day I expected Mitch to be exhausted but he proceeded to run around the campground in the dark for 30 minutes before he was calm enought to get ready for bed.

We got up early the following day and drove to Hallettsville to see Tiffs grandparents on her moms side. We stopped on the way at country bakery which according to Tiff (it seems) is the only place in the world that knows how to correctly make texas czech/german baked goods. Tiff bought about a dozen of her favorite fried pastry type foods called rosettes. We also bought some donuts and pigs in a blanket - not to be confused with kolaches which are according to Tiff filled with fruit or poppyseed. It must be a thing when you grow up in Hallettsville, home of the kolache festival. Pigs in blankets are also called Klobasnek and according to Tiff are not to be made with “weiners” but need to be made with central texas style smoked sausage.

We left Hallettsville and went to go stay the night with our friends Holly and Jared in Cypress. We had originally met Holly and Jared in Columbus, OH while I was going to college. Jared is also a welding engineer that went to Ohio State and he was working at DNV GL when I was interning there. We are around the same age and they had two yorkies as well so we had quite a few things in common. Holly is originally from Houston, so her and Tiff bonded over criticizing the long grey winters in Ohio. After staying the night there and spending the following day with them we took the trailer to surfside and spent the night on the beach.

We stayed at an RV park called Beachfront RV park and resort that had walking access to the beach. There were maybe 5 other trailers at the park since it was the off season. The mosquitos were still pretty bad though. We got to the rv park just as the sun was going down. I was setting up the trailer and fighting off mosquitos when a skinny, light complected white dude smoking a cigarette and his black cane corso came walking up. The guy was wearing a crew neck sweater jeans and a trump hat and the dog had bandages on its ears from where they had recently been clipped. he looked like a guy that lived full time in the RV park, if you have ever spent much time in an RV park you know the type. Anyway, he began to telling me that he was the owner of the place and the multimillion dollar house that sat on the same property. He began to tell me that he was the owner and about his $250K lifted Ford F250. He told me about how the bar that sat between the ouse and the beach used to do 3 million in revenue when Trump was in office and had been doing less than half of that recently. He told me that the federal government would pay you to hunt black bears using cane corsos. I asked him what brought him to surfside and he told me that he made his money in commercial real estate and wanted to move to the beach. He asked me what I thought was going to happen with the election and mentioned that he had donated to the campaign and they had invited him to Mar a Lago to meet the former president. He said he had lived in Dallas in a community with NFL players and other rich folks and they accused him of being a drug dealer. We talked for 15 minutes or so before it got pretty dark and I told him I had to make some dinner.

I made steaks that we had bought earlier at HEB. We also bought some smoked sausage and boudin to bring back home to NM. We left the beach the following day and drove to Stephenville to see Tiffs friend Jenny and her family. We spent the evening and next morning catching up and left for Lubbock where we were planning on staying for the night. When we were driving we found a state park across the border in Clovis. We decided we were going to try and make it to the state park. We stopped in Muleshoe for Mcdonalds and made it to Oasis State park around 9 which was later than we had hoped. When we got there the feedlot smell was overwhelming and we made the decision to keep driving even though it was late. We probably should have just stayed and toughed it out in hindsight.

We went to a truckstop in Clovis planning to stay there. We pulled into the back next to the trucks and started to get ready for bed. I got uneasy because I wasnt sure of the truckstops policy on RV’s staying in their lot so thought it would be better to go ask the person working behind the counter. He told us that we didn't want to stay there. Im not exactly sure of the details why but I figured he knew what he was talking about, so I convinced Tiff to keep driving. Mitch was already sleeping in the camper and Tiff had her pajamas on and contacts out so she wasn't exactly thrilled about driving into the night, without another destination in mind, in the middle of nowhere New Mexico at that time of night. I wasnt exactly thrilled either but I felt that I needed to trust my gut in that moment and my gut was that we needed to do something else. We drove for another hour or so and pulled off on the side of the road by a truck that had done the same just north of Fort Sumner. That was a night of light sleep next to the highway not knowing for sure if someone was going to drive off the road and kill us all. I tucked the trailer behind a guardrail the best I could but it wasn't the best. The lesson learned in hindsight is if you dont know for certainty what you are going to encounter where you are planning on staying, stop an hour or so before sunset so you can make other arrangements if necessary. Everything turned out fine but we probably should have just stopped in Lubbock. On the bright side, It did help us get home around 12 on Sunday which gave us some time to unpack so that was nice.

Week of the 14th

The following weekend after getting back from Texas I went on an elk hunt with Ryan and one of his coworkers. We got there Friday night (Oct 18th) and he ended up tagging out Saturday evening. I didnt take many pictures for some reason probably because it was so cold.

Week of the 21st

Week of the 28th

For halloween we went down to White Rock and walked the neighborhood with the families we typically get together with for bday parties and other events.

Pictures

A graffiti art of prisoners on the side of an abandoned building between santa fe and clines corners